For the seventh year running, Smashwords is participating in Read An Ebook Week. Authors who have published through Smashwords can offer their books at discounts from 25% to 100% (i.e. free) on the Smashwords site. The discounted books are featured in a separate catalogue from March 1st (12 a.m. Pacific Standard Time) until March 7th (12 p.m. PST).

While writing my post about Pete Rawlik’s novel Reanimators, I started thinking about Lovecraftian writing in general. You see the term everywhere these days, in blogs, book reviews and descriptions. What does it mean, anyway?

What is a Lovecraftian novel or story, and how does it differ from other types of weird fiction, science fiction or horror fiction?

Tentacles? Surely more than that!

First of all, who was Howard Phillips Lovecraft? He was a writer of weird fiction who lived almost his entire life (1890-1937) in Providence, Rhode Island. Almost unknown during his relatively short life, he achieved enduring fame after his writings caught the popular fancy. Lovecraft’s friends and fellow writers August Derleth and Donald Wandrei are credited with bringing public attention to his work by publishing it posthumously under the Arkham House imprint.

Fiction dubbed “Lovecraftian” covers a wide range:

1. Rewritings or expansions of HPL’s stories. Examples include Pete Rawlik’s Reanimators and my own The Friendship of Mortals, both of which use Lovecraft’s story “Herbert West, Reanimator” as a starting point.

2. Original stories with HPL’s settings, entities and situations, but with new plots and characters. The body of such writings is sometimes described as the “Cthulhu Mythos.” Authors include August Derleth and Brian Lumley, among others.

3. Original stories with new themes similar to those of HPL, often referencing his works. Colin Wilson’s story “The Return of the Lloigor” is an example. Cherie Priest’s Maplecroft is another.

4. Original stories that mention HPL or elements from his fiction but with plots that go beyond his characteristic settings and situations . Many present-day writers in horror and the paranormal give a nod or pay tribute to Lovecraft in varying degrees. Stephen King, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Peter Straub, Ramsey Campbell and many others — too many to name, really. Kiernan’s novel The Red Tree, which I recently finished reading, is a perfect example.

I think that to be truly Lovecraftian, a story or novel must include certain qualities and plot elements, such as references to ancient books, other dimensions and displacements in time, but especially the idea that we and our Earth are not the culmination of anything, merely a small blip in the cosmos. The horror, when revealed, must be enormous and incomprehensible, on a cosmic scale.

Fiction of the “classic Lovecraftian” type would include some or all of these:

1. A New England setting.

2. Old houses or other buildings, or subterranean places.

3. Ancient books or manuscripts of secret lore.

4. Concerns with ancestry.

5. Connection with a university or with researchers.

6. No sex and almost no female characters.

7. An earnest, scholarly narrative style.

8. Accidental discovery of shocking secrets by a character (always a man, of a scholarly, solitary type) engaged in genealogical or other research.

9. No magic; presumably all manifestations are natural phenomena, even though some violate the laws of physics as we know them.

10. The idea that the earth, solar system, galaxy and universe have a history independent of any connection to humanity, involving life forms or vast entities that, while indifferent to humans, may pose deadly threats to them, either directly or by actions of worshippers or minions of these entities.

This brings me to religion and magic. Lovecraft’s atheism and scientific rationalism are reflected in his fiction. Magic appears only in Lovecraft’s fantasies, for example The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath. Even there it is somewhat limited, being part of that fictional world — for example, cats that can fly to the dark side of the moon. As for religion, it’s human beings who worship and act in the name of the Great Old Ones such as Cthulhu or Yog-Sothoth. The entities themselves appear to be indifferent to humanity.

Personally I think the term “Lovecraftian” is being applied rather too freely these days, as a synonym for weird fiction generally. In a straight-up Lovecraftian story, their main characters may not necessarily be male, but should definitely be unattached and engaged in some sort of scholarly enterprise or genealogical research, rather than sex. Characters with active sex lives are not Lovecraftian in the strict sense, no matter what weird things happen to them.

In fact, I would argue that many of the works in my fourth category of types above aren’t really Lovecraftian at all. They may have been inspired by HPL’s writings or contain references to them, but it takes more than that to be “Lovecraftian fiction.” It’s a subset of weird fiction, not a synonym for it. Writers and reviewers owe it to H.P. Lovecraft and his admirers to be familiar with his outlook and style before applying the term to a piece of writing.

Several weeks ago I read an interview with author Pete Rawlik on the Lovecraft eZine blog, in which Rawlik referred to his novel Reanimators. I had not heard of this work before so of course rushed to read it. Given my connection with HPL’s character Herbert West, I couldn’t wait to see what another writer had done with him.

Hence this review.

The plot? I was going to say “The plot in brief,” but it’s hard to summarize this novel. It’s a composite of many stories, each based on or involving characters from other stories by Lovecraft. In a way this maintains the spirit of “Herbert West, Reanimator,” which was published as a six-part serial. The main character and narrator (for the most part) is Stuart Hartwell, a fellow student of Herbert West and Daniel Cain (a name from the 1985 movie Re-Animator; the narrator of HPL’s story is unnamed). West and Cain’s early experiments result in the violent deaths of Hartwell’s parents, inducing a desire for revenge that waxes and wanes over many years. During these years, Hartwell practices medicine in Arkham but also pursues research into reanimation, achieving better results than West and Cain, who turn out to be bunglers. Hartwell manages to conceal his research from the authorities while becoming involved with a host of characters including Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee (from HPL’s “The Shadow Out of Time”), Dr. Munoz (from “Cool Air”) and — wait for it — Charlie Chan! Every now and then Hartwell sneaks into Herbert West’s secret laboratory, reads his notes and sabotages his experiments. Eventually, he begins his own grand experiment, with the population of Arkham as unwitting subjects. He also takes a trip into the country around Arkham, meets Lavinia Whately and her father, and witnesses a momentous event near Dunwich. Some time after this, on a visit to Sefton Asylum, Hartwell meets a Russian doctor who had spent some time in Dunwich and examined an amazing boy named Wilbur Whately. In 1914 Dr. Hartwell, like Dr. West, goes to war, where his reanimating reagent proves singularly useful, in a terrifying way. After the war, Hartwell swears off pursuing his reanimation research, but to no avail. Despite his good intentions, his reagent has a bizarre role in the worldwide devastation brought about by the so-called Spanish influenza. This episode is followed by a rather sparse reprise of the concluding chapter of HPL’s “Herbert West, Reanimator,” except it’s Stuart Hartwell who drives the truck that delivers a gang of reanimated dudes and a big square box to West’s house. After this, Hartwell takes a time-out, and the narrative is continued by Daniel Cain, by way of a document discovered among Hartwell’s papers at a later date. Cain relates how he and Herbert West spent part of WWI — in the crumbling Chateau d’Erlette, which is inhabited by a lady and her exceedingly strange son, a talented violist whose name is Erik, nicknamed “Zann” by his mother. ‘Nuff said. West and Cain make a reappearance in Arkham, moving in mere doors away from Hartwell, who is exceedingly annoyed by this proximity, but makes use of it by spying on his (former?) enemies. Combat with syringes and pistol ensues. Hartwell gets involved with rural medicine in the Miskatonic Valley and, along with Lake and Dyer (“At the Mountains of Madness” and Wilmarth (“The Whisperer in Darkness”) witnesses bizarre activities in a village called Quirk. He returns unscathed to his practice, and in 1927 participates in the investigation of strange goings-on in Innsmouth. About this time, Wilbur Whately arrives in the Library of Miskatonic University. Thanks to Dr. Hartwell’s efforts, Henry Armitage (the librarian), is in fine form and plays a heroic role, but soon after this Mrs. Armitage dies. Her deathbed is attended by one Frank Elwood (“The Dreams in the Witch-House”). Elwood gives Hartwell a document he has written, outlining the true story of Keziah Mason and the death of Walter Gilman. Said history is pretty colourful — Keziah Mason was a prodigy and had two twin sisters, and they were all midwives and… Enough, already. Another set of triplets, this time boys from Kingsport, precipitate the final horror, in which a convergence of ancestral follies and scientific travesties plays out, sealing the fate of Stuart Hartwell.

Whew.

My review: I have to give Rawlik full marks for weaving together characters and plot bits from a dozen or so Lovecraft stories, combining them with actual events from history. The prose is vivid in spots, even a little feverish. Rawlik maintains most of the necessary characteristics of a Lovecraftian story — a main character who is a single, unattached male, narration with little dialogue, and no sex. Scientific details are added with authority and reasonable plausibility. Some of the plot elements created to provide background — for example Dr. Munoz’s and Keziah Mason’s backstories — show ingenuity and imagination. Aficionados of HPL would certainly find this novel a gold mine of allusions and expansions on the work of the master. As an homage to H.P. Lovecraft, Reanimators is admirable.

Now the elements that aren’t so good, first among them the fact that a reader unacquainted with the work of Lovecraft would probably find this book incomprehensible. In order to incorporate characters and plot elements from a number of stories, Rawlik sacrifices overall plot integrity. His adoption of Lovecraft’s style — old-fashioned, sometimes pedantic and wordy — becomes tedious at times, and is not helped by the paucity of dialogue. (In the few places where dialogue is used, it has a distinctly livening effect). Most of Lovecraft’s works are short — stories and a couple of novellas. Adopting his style for a novel of more than 300 pages risks straining the patience of readers used to contemporary fast-paced fiction. Like most of Lovecraft’s main characters, Rawlik’s Hartwell doesn’t have much personality. Apart from token chest-beating about his role in some of the disasters that occur, he doesn’t do much self-examination or undergo any development. His function is to tell what happens, but he does not engage the reader. What kept me reading wasn’t sympathy for Hartwell, but merely a desire to find out what happened next.

Finally, I was quite disappointed to find that despite the title of the book, which references “Herbert West, Reanimator,” Herbert West is almost invisible in Reanimators. Creating Hartwell to play the role of a rival and enemy of West was a good idea, but Rawlik sends Hartwell off on side trips in order to bring in all those other HPL plots and people, breaking the original plot thread in the process. There is almost no interaction between Hartwell and West. I wish the author had stayed focused on reanimation and examined different motives for and methods of accomplishing it, ending with a showdown between West and Hartwell. Anyone looking for that won’t find it in Reanimators.

Among the books and stories I have read, the prize for “most terrifying” goes to… “The Willows” by Algernon Blackwood!

Published in 1907, this novella was noted by H.P. Lovecraft in his treatise Supernatural Horror in Literature as a superior example of the terror tale. The story certainly terrified me when I first read it at age 12, and even now, decades later, certain passages from it can bring back a feeling of profound and irredeemable fear. Inducing such fear, of course, is the whole point of horror or weird fiction.

Let’s just have a look at the necessary qualities of this fiction genre. First of all, the author must achieve a feeling of fundamental wrongness in the environment of the main character, or in that character him- or herself. This wrongness must reach out and envelope the reader, who then shares the dislocation of reality and experiences vicariously the state of having no clue as to how to change the situation — a situation which ultimately threatens the well-being or the very existence of the character.

The wrongness or strangeness may be intriguing at first, beguiling even, but eventually it becomes threatening, dangerous, terrifying. We (the fictitious character and the reader) recognize a deadly danger, without knowing what it is or how to deal with it. The result is a fundamental dislocation and isolation.

“The Willows” meets all these criteria to perfection, which is why it is surely one of the most terrifying stories I have ever read. Two friends — young men of the type encountered in English fiction of the early 20th century — are on a canoeing and camping trip on the Danube River. Somewhere beyond Austria, where the river passes through what is now the borderland between Slovakia and Hungary, they enter a region of shifting sandbars and temporary islands overgrown with willows. They camp on one of the islands, and experience a series of minor mishaps and odd occurrences that keep them there an additional night.

At first the narrator feels a strange charm in their physical surroundings — the remoteness, the strong “personality” of the river whose every mood they have come to know, representing wild nature at its finest — and especially the overwhelming presence of the willows. With time, an inexplicable unease develops, but he keeps it to himself because he thinks his companion (known only as “the Swede”) is too unimaginative to appreciate subtle emotions. This has the effect of isolating the narrator with his fears and increasing the tension.

The individual events the campers experience while on the island are not particularly shocking — the sight of a man in a boat making warning signs and crossing himself before vanishing in the distance, a swimming otter that seems to look at them strangely, a missing canoe paddle and a tear in the bottom of their canoe that must be repaired before they can continue their journey, foodstuffs and supplies that seem oddly diminished — but as they add up, the feeling of wrongness becomes undeniable. It builds up gradually while the narrator keeps his fears to himself, but bursts out into terror on the second night, when the two men begin to share their perceptions. By that time, the narrator has seen something inexplicable during the previous night, and has also begun to hear an unaccountable ringing or humming sound that comes and goes.

During the conversation within the safe circle of light cast by the campfire, one of the characters utters sentences that still make me shiver: “All my life,” he said, “I have been strangely, vividly conscious of another region — not far removed from our own world in one sense, yet wholly different in kind — where great things go on unceasingly, where immense and terrible personalities hurry by, intent on vast purposes compared to which earthly affairs … are all as dust in the balance — vast purposes, I mean, that deal directly with the soul…” Just typing this out, more than forty years since I first read it, brings back the acute fear I felt then.

And another sentence that has never left me: “To name is to reveal.”

So I won’t say how the story ends, but I must point out the characteristic that makes this tale so disturbing: at no time is the source of terror made explicit. From start to finish it remains amorphous and veiled. To me, this is crucial. The moment the horror is revealed, no matter how evil, grotesque or huge, it loses a great deal of its power. Once you see the tentacles, the thing-to-be-feared changes from an unknown, possibly unknowable it-could-be-anything to… a thing with tentacles. Which may be terrifying, but it’s a terrifying something.

If you’ve read the other parts of this series, you may be thinking it’s about how not to promote your writing. If it inspired anyone to seek out the many blogs offering positive advice on marketing and promotion, so much the better. I admit my approach to these aspects of being my own publisher is lackadaisical. But does that make me a Bad Writer?

This might be an answer…

Writer = one who writes.

Real writer = one who makes one’s living by writing.

Hobby writer/dilettante/fake = one who writes for one’s own amusement, with something other than writing as a source of income.

Is it really so?

Real writers have to market, promote, make business plans, etc. (unless they have publishers who do those things for them). Hobby writers can just put their books out there and hope for the best.

Real writers have to work social media, make connections with their readers, create and maintain their brand. Some, perhaps many, hobby writers do these things too, but their livelihood doesn’t depend on it.

Hobby writers (unless retired with adequate pensions) need to spend most of their time and energy at their day jobs. That leaves only “spare time” for both writing and marketing. Which one do you suppose gets neglected?

Things all writers have in common:

1. A compulsion to write.

2. A desire to have their writing read and recognized.

So the only difference between real writers and hobby writers is that real writers need to make a living from their craft.

This leads to the big questions:

1. Are real writers better at writing than hobby writers?

2. Does any of this matter to readers?

The writing itself may be bad or good, regardless of what kind of writer produces it. Hobby writers, under less compulsion to keep producing new works and marketing their existing ones, may take more time and so turn out work of greater quality. Without the need to direct all their writing to a target market, hobby writers are free to write from inspiration, possibly creating works of originality (or weirdness). On the other hand, career writers must sharpen their game if they want to succeed, so have to pay attention to quality as well as quantity.

All writer-publishers should be aware of the “ugly truth” about the publishing business.

But does this mean if you don’t want to market and promote, or are a dismal failure at it, you’re not a Real Writer?

Of course not! It’s only a problem if you expect to sell a lot of books and make a lot of money. Most of us began writing because it’s what we love to do, not in order to set ourselves up for failure and guilt. We all have choices and not everyone is looking for the same rewards, as illustrated by this quote from writer SK Nicholls (commenting on another writer’s blog post about trad vs. indie publishing): “I have heard people say hobby writers can’t be taken seriously. Only writers writing for money and those who treat writing like a business can succeed. I suppose that depends on your point of view and your definition of success. It certainly isn’t mine.”

It’s crucial to maintain a balance between your expectations of whatever constitutes success for you (money earned, readers attracted, awards bestowed) and the effort you are willing to put into marketing and promotion. The gap may in rare instances be bridged by good luck or magic (but don’t count on that).

For readers, there’s really no point in worrying about whether the writer of a book you are considering is a real writer or a mere hobbyist. Some readers will not read anything that has not been endorsed by critics or reviewers, but most look at the story first. If the story interests and excites them, then they want to know more about the author.

Who are the Real Writers? All of us — all who write with passion and energy, striving to perfect our art. How good we happen to be at selling our work is another matter. There are professional writers and writers who prosper financially, but those are subsets of the broad category. We are all writers.

So endeth the series. The Irascible Indie goes back to reading, mulling, questioning and writing. (And with spring just around the corner, add gardening to that list).

Having read any number of exhortations to writers to “Know your target market,” I ask myself — what is my target market? Haven’t got a clue, except — wait for it — people who really want to read my books, of course!

But really, does every writer start writing with a specific group of people in mind, tailoring their work to please that group? I think not.

Many writers start to write because they’ve been haunted for years by a story plot or a character. Finally, the opportunity arises and they embody the plot or character in words. With luck, the piece of writing takes on a life of its own and compels the writer to keep on writing until all is resolved and an end is reached. Now that it’s so easy to publish, many works are rushed into print (or ebook format) without any thought for a potential market.

This may be naive, foolish even, but surely not evil.

The writer who wants to make a career of writing, or merely to supplement their income in a reliable way — that writer needs to think about a target market, to write within the constraints of a genre, to direct their marketing efforts toward readers of that genre, and to find ways of creating a fruitful relationship with those readers. Those of us who need not depend on our writing for our livelihoods, and have the luxury to write from inspiration alone, need not fret about markets.

But readers, fans, a devoted following? What writer doesn’t want that? The trick is to find these readers and to know who they are.

In the old days of traditional print-on-paper publishing, authors had no way of knowing who bought their books. People went to bookstores, picked up books they found interesting, paid for them and went away. Even when authors held book-signing sessions, they didn’t ask the people who wanted their books signed to leave their names and addresses. Only real “fans” (in the original sense of “fanatics”) who bothered to write to an author’s publisher would impart such information, but they were a minute minority.

Clever authors now use a variety of enticements to obtain readers’ email addresses and build contact lists they can use to inform those who have bought their books when new ones are to be issued. Not so clever (or lazy) authors do not.

Another piece of advice with apparent logic on its side is to think about the interests of potential readers and to frequent online hangouts where those folks gather. All right, so my books were inspired by a story written by H.P. Lovecraft. HPL has a huge number of fans, and there is a multitude of Lovecraft-related blogs and discussion venues to check out. Have I done that? Well, yes. Sort of. But I don’t really have much to say to video gamers and I don’t relate well to tentacles.

Well, how about other elements found in my books? The funeral business, for example. Physicians and surgeons. There are plenty of places where these topics are featured, but somehow I can’t see attempting to insinuate myself into professional discussions of these groups in any credible way, lurking and contributing until one fine day I can let slip the fact that I’ve written novels featuring a doctor who once worked as an undertaker and has an interest in revivifying corpses. Oh, and his best pal is a librarian.

For that matter, I am a librarian — a cataloguer, in fact, just like the narrator of my first book. I belong to a very active discussion list about cataloguing and related matters, but I would never dream of mentioning my books in that venue. It’s simply not done.

This business of targeting a market is yet another of the potential arenas of failure that surround the indie author/self-publisher. Even when making a living from writing isn’t a necessity, being inept at marketing is yet another club we can use to beat ourselves with. Rather than seize it and administer blows to our egos, I suggest we treat ourselves more kindly, administering humour when possible. Let’s be grateful for being able to publish our own work as easily as we now can, recognizing that some of us are better at selling our creations than others. And we’re lucky to have a community of fellow indies online with whom we can share our woes and wisdom.

I used to garden in a place with real winters. The ground froze and the garden was sealed under a foot or more of snow for several months. It was closed for the season. There was no question of any garden work during those months. The only thing to do was look at seed and plant catalogues and dream.

Here, winter is just a pause, not a shutdown. Today it’s 10 C (50 F). The only snow is on distant mountain peaks and the grass is green and wet. Everything is wet, and in fact there’s about as much garden work to do as in the frozen, snow-covered situation. I can’t even mow the grass, never mind dig or edge. Pruning may be done, but that’s about all. And starting seeds in the house, of course, but that’s not really a garden job, since it’s done inside.

But things are blooming — in January, one of the longest, coldest, darkest months of the year. When I moved back to the coast more than twenty years ago I couldn’t wait to install shrubs and other plants that would bloom in January.

First among them was a Chinese witch hazel (Hamamelis mollis). Unfortunately, the plant I ended up with, and possibly its location (in dry sandy soil, shaded by maples and an ailanthus much of the summer when the buds would be forming) has resulted in almost no bloom. Very disappointing. There have been only three years out of those twenty when it has produced any flowers at all. This is one of those years, why I’m not sure, because the conditions under which the plant is growing haven’t changed. Maybe last summer was perfect in some way. In any case, the little tree is in full bloom right now — not spectacularly, compared to better plants in happier situations, but better than no bloom at all.

Chinese Witch Hazel

The individual flowers are just thready wisps of yellow; you have to see hundreds of them at once to get the full effect, and they don’t photograph well when there are relatively few, so you’ll just have to use your imagination. There is a nice fragrance too, when there are enough flowers.

The winter honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima) is also blooming well. It’s a semi-evergreen shrub that shoots out new branches all summer long. They quite often die inexplicably, so a good deal of pruning is needed to keep the plant looking tidy. The flowers are by no means showy, but the fragrance, especially in the evening, is something special — a lemony sweetness.

Winter Honeysuckle

Winter Honeysuckle Shrub

Another January-blooming plant that sends out an alluring fragrance at night is really a weed — the spurge laurel, Daphne laureola. It’s a tough, drought-tolerant shrub that self-seeds generously, so has become an invasive pest in woodlands here. I have a few of them around the edges of the garden, and as long as I pull up the dozens of seedlings they produce, I can enjoy the haunting perfume on damp winter evenings.

Spurge laurel (Daphne laureola)

Then there’s the Algerian iris (I. unguicularis). The foliage is messy, but the flowers are improbably gorgeous in January.

Algerian iris (Iris unguicularis)

The Corsican hellebores are among the winter-blooming stalwarts in this garden, totally reliable, as are snowdrops.

Corsican hellebore

Hellebore and Snowdrops

My scraggly rosemary plant, which has put up with shade for twenty years of summers, blooms defiantly in January. I guess the absence of leaves on the maples in autumn enables it to set buds. The flowers are little pale blue things that would go unnoticed in summer.

Rosemary in bloom

And finally, another weedy plant with fragrant flowers — the modest violet. The perfume sneaks up and delivers a pleasant surprise when I’m standing around contemplating the garden on a January day.

Until now, I’ve had trouble answering the question, “What kind of books do you write?” As soon as I said, “Well, they’re not really mysteries. Or science fiction. Or thrillers. They’re sort of … different,” I knew I was in trouble. Writers are supposed to be able to tell people about their books in 25 words or less. Waffling around about what they’re not is pretty lame.

The trouble is, my books are in an awkward category. Or rather, they don’t sit squarely in any category. Calling them “literary supernatural” feels right to me. My settings are 98 percent realistic, my characters are fully developed and the plots are built around their interactions and conflicts. There are elements of the magical and the unexplained, but not enough to qualify for the “fantasy” or “paranormal” labels.

And I recently found this in Wikipedia: “Supernatural fiction continues to be popular, but because it is not simple to define and is not popularly understood, it is not used as a marketing category by publishers, booksellers, libraries, etc. When marketed, supernatural fiction is often classed as mainstream fiction, or is subsumed by other subgenres.”

Dang!

Calling your book mainstream fiction is the kiss of death, I’m told. The advice is to pick a category (on Amazon, this is) not shared by thousands or tens of thousands of other books. Get specific. The trouble is, as noted in the Wikipedia entry quoted above, there is no category called Literary Supernatural. And of course “literary” comes with its own burden of perceptions — elitist, complicated and (worst of all) boring.

In fact the topic of book categories, especially on Amazon, is a popular one in the blogosphere, as authors try to figure out the optimal categories to maximize sales. Advice abounds, but somehow I’ve never managed to find the magic bullet (assuming one exists). After going through the available categories I settled on Literature and Fiction > Action & Adventure and Literature and Fiction > Literary > Psychological. I have no idea if different choices would have better results in terms of sales.

As I read blog posts and discussions by writers, both indie and trad, I notice recurring topics: It’s not enough to write your book and put it out there. Your book will not sell itself. Writing is a business. You must know your market. You must position your book in the correct category. You must use social media. And so on.

While I recognize the value of this advice, inevitably, I consider, mull over and often question. I thought I would turn my musings into blog fodder. The result is a series of posts about “writing right.” Not so much the writing, but the presentation — of both the writer and the written works. I admit I often have a contrarian reaction to advice. Maybe it’s just a reflex reaction; maybe it’s because I’m sort of lazy (I considered calling this series The Indolent Indie). Does that mean I’m a (gulp) Bad Writer?

So here goes —

Part 1: Writing By Feel.

Confession: I have never taken any courses in “creative writing.” But I have written all my life — essays in school, term papers in university, memos, reports and documentation at work, a journal for many years, hundreds of blog posts and five (soon to be six, I hope) novels, four of which I have published.

I often end up arguing with the advice given by “how to write” books and falling into “angry child” mode (kicking and screaming — metaphorically, of course). It’s possible I secretly fear that my writing won’t be good enough, that I won’t be able to incorporate all the advice, and therefore FAIL.

Selling one’s writing may be a business, but creating it should not become an arena of failure. Writing should flow, not jerk along with the writer consulting a handbook between paragraphs and questioning the correctness of every sentence. (All right, it may help to bring the book out at the editing/rewriting stage, but first drafting goes best when it’s unfettered).

I also resist a formulaic approach to writing, given the huge element of subjectivity in how it’s judged by any individual reader. (Readers vary tremendously; consider the difference between a casual reader, a critique group member, an editor, reviewer or writing teacher. Each of them reads for a different reason, which colours their evaluation of a piece.)

Consider too that reading books about writing may be a great way to avoid doing any writing yourself. There are so many of these books you can’t hope to read them all, which means you may never set pen to paper (or, more likely, fingers to keys).

But then there’s Stephen King’s On Writing. I did read that. Unlike many of King’s novels, it’s a slender little book. Far from provoking my usual cranky reaction, it inspired me to start writing. It was magical — suddenly this thing I thought was impossible was the only thing to do. But then, I’ve been a fan of King’s writing for decades. In fact, reading and re-reading his novels (and those of other authors) helped me learn how to write.

That’s the thing: I believe the best way to make yourself into a good writer is to read — read A LOT — feel intensely, fall in love with an idea, a plot, a character, and WRITE. Then find a group of people (maybe writers) you trust, who will read your work and tell you what they think. Then rewrite (or not!). Keep doing all this stuff long enough, and you will probably produce at least something worthwhile. But don’t rush to publish prematurely. It’s better to take longer and produce a really good piece of writing than to quickly crank out a bunch of mediocre efforts. Setting a manuscript aside for a few months is a good idea too; you will return to it with the sort of objectivity that leads to improvement.

Time for writing is so precious, I hate to waste any of it reading “how to write” books. Okay, maybe if I was between writing projects, with time to spare, a book about writing written in a style I find engaging might be worth reading. Not as a paint-by-numbers manual, but as something that could be stashed in the brain attic to mingle with all the other stuff up there, possibly to improve my next writing effort without my even realizing it.

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